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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23969062">we're the blueprints for building something permanent</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatsupdanger/pseuds/whatsupdanger'>whatsupdanger</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Henry Danger (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Falling In Love, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Multi, it's kind of bittersweet i guess? like domestic but kind of sad but also kind of hopeful, literally just me being emotional over this trio for 1k+</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 17:14:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,391</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23969062</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatsupdanger/pseuds/whatsupdanger</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>it’s almost midnight and they didn’t mean to stay this long, never do, but he knows they’ll still be here in the morning. that’s how this goes. maybe they will flip pancakes for breakfast and stay long enough to catch the galaxy wars marathon at noon, or maybe they will leave quietly in the same clothes they’ve slept in. but they’ll wake up together. there’s something meaningful in that that he’ll unearth later. </p><p>/ or, four places where henry, charlotte, and jasper make a home.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Charlotte Bolton/Jasper Dunlop/Henry Hart</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>58</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>we're the blueprints for building something permanent</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>"but umana," you say, "you've already written a shitty bittersweet domestic chensper fic." to which i say, "you absolute knave. it's my henry danger fanfiction and i can do what i want."</p><p>idk i uh .. have way too many feelings abt chensper and this is the semi-poetic word vomit i did mostly at 2 am last night. trigger warnings for swearing and mentions of blood/mild injury. it's nothing graphic though. </p><p>title is from a scrapped poem i wrote like four months ago.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><em>i.</em> </p><p>
  <span>it always comes back to this.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>11:38 on a friday night. they’re twelve years old and sprawled across henry’s couch, legs all tangled together underneath the blanket, burying their laughter in their fists. somewhere upstairs, his parents are asleep, but down here the air buzzes with neon. they’re tipping their heads back to drink brightly-colored sodas and charlotte’s beating jasper at mario kart with only one hand just to prove that she can. in between them, henry plays commentator, winces whenever their elbows dig into his ribs in retaliation for some jibe he’s made.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>these nights never bleed like the rest. if they are just three kids running from something that’s crumbling under their feet, they don’t feel like it here — here they are architects building a monument inside the walls of a living room. jasper is trying to block charlotte’s view of the tv and they’re bickering aimlessly and their mouths taste like strawberries and buttered popcorn. henry thinks it has been like this forever, and maybe always will be. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>it’s almost midnight and they didn’t mean to stay this long, never do, but he knows they’ll still be here in the morning. that’s how this goes. maybe they will flip pancakes for breakfast and stay long enough to catch the </span>
  <em>
    <span>galaxy wars </span>
  </em>
  <span>marathon at noon, or maybe they will leave quietly in the same clothes they’ve slept in. but they’ll wake up together. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>there’s something meaningful in that that he’ll unearth later. but for now, it’s his turn to play ; he takes the controller from jasper and charlotte’s smile flashes silver in the dark. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“ ready to lose? ”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>he scoffs. “ in your dreams, ” he says, and then they are racing and jasper is cheering and he thinks that they could spend hours tucked away in the corners of these sleepless nights. that this could be the rest of their lives. he’d be okay with that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(charlotte blue shells him in the second fucking lap.)</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>ii.</em>
</p><p>
  <span>there’s a certain sort of quiet that only cuts into the man cave after the worst has happened. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>jasper thinks he knows it too well these days, thinks that the bright colors of this place from two years ago have been washed out somewhere along the way. he’s sixteen and it’s 12:26 on a tuesday night and he’s wrapping gauze around his best friend’s bloody knuckles. on henry’s other hand, two of his fingers are splinted together, and there’s stitches on his cheek from the graze of a bullet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>two inches up and to the left and it would’ve blown straight through his skull. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>they’re trying not to think about that. like if they cover their eyes with their palms, the reality of it won’t bleed in through their fingers. it’s not enough to pretend, but they’re sixteen fucking years old, and they don’t know how to deal with this sort of thing the right way yet. maybe they never will. maybe there’s not a right way at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“ you guys didn’t have to stay, ” henry says finally, and the silence splinters.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“ don’t be stupid. ” charlotte's voice is somehow firm and soft all at once. “ we wouldn’t leave you. ”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>jasper tucks in the ends of the bandage, careful, careful. like he will break this hero’s hands if he’s not gentle with them. “ i wouldn’t have been able to watch all of that on the news. i wouldn’t have been able to wait until morning to come back here, ” he confesses. it’s selfish and it’s true. possibly the only thing worse than watching his best friend brush fingers with death would be watching it from anywhere but here.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>henry flexes his hand against the white cloth experimentally, chews his lower lip. he looks achingly young in that moment, and maybe that’s what this sort of quiet does to them — strips down their armor, peels back their skin to expose the bones and beating hearts underneath. they can let themselves be open ribcages and fears splayed out, though ; there’s no one here to see them but each other, and they have known one another in their darkest moments. they’ve shared the hurt and the quiet together enough times before, so what is one more night ?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“ i don’t want to go home, ” jasper says. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>and that’s all that it takes, really, because that’s the way it is between them. charlotte goes and gets a pile of blankets from the closet and henry settles a little deeper into the couch, unbroken fingers ghosting over his stitches. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“ three hot chocolates, ” jasper tells the auto-snacker, one hand pressed against the machine. they won’t sleep much tonight, but they’ll find something else in lying awake together. “ extra marshmallows, please. ”</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>
    <span>iii.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>dystopia never sleeps the way swellview does.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>it’s 4:43 on a thursday morning and outside the city is thrumming, car horns and headlights and rain against the window. it’s just noise, but it could be a melody, something they’re learning to hum by heart. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>they’re nineteen years old and as awake as the streets are. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>their bruises haven’t faded yet and sometime after midnight the fears slipped in through the back door and carved out a space in their bedroom. it’s not enough to be forearms-against-hips under the covers right now, so they’re scattered in the kitchen instead, charlotte sitting on the counter, legs dangling over the edge and the sleeves of henry’s flannel slipping down past her knuckles as she creams butter and brown sugar together in a bowl. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“ do we even have vanilla ? ” jasper asks, rummaging through the pantry. they don’t bake much ; war doesn’t leave time for things like that. banana bread at four in the morning is a whim born out of the need to </span>
  <em>
    <span>make</span>
  </em>
  <span> something. to use their fingers for something other than fists. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“ you can substitute in maple syrup, ” henry supplies helpfully. this is about all he does besides eat their chocolate chips straight from the bag.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>the moment seems separate from everything else. it’s a fleeting little sanctuary that they’ve built here ; the sky is pouring thunder and outside the taste of smoke lingers heavy in the air, but in here charlotte can toss flour in jasper’s face and shriek with laughter when he throws her over his shoulder. she can curve her arms around henry’s waist as he beats the eggs, hand tugging through the tangle of his slept-in curls. she can be full-hearted and put her broken parts to rest while they wait for the kitchen timer to tick down and cut their fresh bread into squares and dip the pieces in cups of hot coffee. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>tomorrow they will be heroes again, pulling on their masks and their gloves and their battle-hardened eyes. for right now, though, the city can wait. right now they are young and in love, hands moving in harmony, and they are finding a different kind of healing in flour and cinnamon and each other.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>
    <span>iv.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>it always comes back to this.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>11:39 on a saturday morning. they’re freshly-turned twenty-one years old, and these days in boston seem doused in gold, bursting with pinks and blues and greens like a watercolor canvas. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>this is not the one where they are soldiers. this is not the one where they are war-torn, all bared and bloodied teeth, no — this is the one where their beginning is softer. flowers on the windowsill, books on the coffee table. june sunlight dragging its fingertips across the sky. henry scrambles eggs at the stove, fluffing them with cheese and milk ;  charlotte stirs golden honey into their tea ; jasper rinses raspberries in a collander. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>they woke up together this morning. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>they’ll wake up together tomorrow, and the next day after that. there’s something meaningful in that, glowing openly in between them now, and it tastes like this : their hands together, their scars faded, their laughter painted on the walls. </span>
  <em>
    <span>i love you i love you i love you. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>they dance in their kitchen, in this castle of light that they’ve built, like they will always be twenty-one and feel just like this. and there’s truth there. because home has changed places, changed cities, but it has never changed hearts — it has been this way forever, the three of them and their lungs and their lips. this kind of love stays. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>this kind of love is divine, and it is permanent. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>come talk to me on <a href="https://sunsetcurve.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a>.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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